


Lullaby in Darkness

by TwoDrunkenCelestials



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (Mild) Body Horror, Bittersweet Ending, Dark!Jon, Depersonalization, Dissociation, Lonely!Martin, M/M, Transformation, dark!Martin, fear of violence, giving into another power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27614441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoDrunkenCelestials/pseuds/TwoDrunkenCelestials
Summary: "He's hardly aware of his own body, of the pieces melting away or flicking off, being stolen by scavengers of the darkest place. It's getting lighter though, a freedom like a wave washing away the thought that perhaps this is a bad thing."Jon embraces a new God. It's a welcome change.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65
Collections: Artefact Storage Monsterloving Event 2020





	Lullaby in Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> This is a dark(ish) piece with a happy ending. Well. A Bittersweet ending, perhaps. 
> 
> I'm really proud of this piece, and thanks to Cuttooth for the beta!

Jon doesn't like being touched anymore, doesn't like being looked at. For someone who's always being watched by something far more wretched than he, it's a unique sort of agony.

When people come too close, he flinches. When people speak too loud, he flinches. When people look too long, he flinches.

Perhaps that's why it's easy to shut off each light in his office and cover the cracks with black cloth. Seal away the light, feel the dark and the cold creep over his skin and settle like a blanket over the room. It's even better when he closes his eyes.

_Nobody will care. Nobody will see. Nobody is permitted._

The corkscrew hovers above where he knows his eyes are, shaking. His hand is shaking. He wishes he could plunge it in, rid himself permanently of this wretched sight.

If his body permitted it. If Beholding allowed its precious unmoored Archivist his freedom. _If, if, if._

He hears the knock at his door, and Jon jumps. He's wound tight, tighter than a spring loaded coil, already flinching in the imagined agony he no doubt deserves.

Melanie could raise a quick hand. So could Daisy. So could Basira or Peter or anyone.

Jon blinks away tears, cowering beneath his desk, chairs and everything barricaded in front. Hands in front of his eyes, already squeezed shut.

He doesn't speak. Tries not to breathe. Finds himself struck dumb, his throat too tight, leaving him voiceless and overwhelmed after days of staying quiet, after losing himself in the silent, safe darkness.

 _Just leave me be,_ he wants to tell whoever is there, _please, just leave me alone and unloved and safe from everything._

Jon thinks he hears his name, but it feels like it's through fog, though the fuzziness in his own head. His thoughts shy away, refuse to recognise the voice, let himself be _vulnerable,_ and he rocks, the subtle sound of the movement covering what he can hear.

_Leave me be, please. Let the dark or fog consume me. Let me slip away into the shadows and make them my home, where no one can ever touch me. Where my form can be as smoke, less than, and where I am safe from eyes and fingers and burning. Safe from dreams and knives and guns and violence. Safe from eyes that look away, fog in their own right. Let me be alone at last._

It's like a mantra, words that curl through his thoughts, becoming more real, crystalizing on his tongue. He chants, his voice rising like a church bell on Sunday.

The knocks outside grow louder, but so does Jon, something new and strange coalescing in the air around him as he intonates.

He's hardly aware of his own body, of the pieces melting away or flicking off, being stolen by scavengers of the darkest place. It's getting lighter though, a freedom like a wave washing away the thought that perhaps this is a _bad thing._

_Blind the eyes, the tongue, the form. Wash clean the shadow of all that's old; welcome the new with hymns of peace and joy and dark. Let me be one no longer, let me be less. Form is pain and form is agony and form is unloveable. Only inky shadow will remain. Leave only the monster behind, leave it in its beloved dark._

The tension, the storm, a spark away from lightning, _breaks,_ and something finally snaps free.

***

The door gives way under the wild, hard slams of Martin’s body, his panic at an all time high. The fear is heavy, a buzz in his veins, his ears still ringing with the strange words he heard Jon speaking.

Light floods into the office-- or tries, at least. It falls short, hardly penetrating the overwhelming murk that fills the room to the brim.

Martin doesn't hesitate, through the open door frame in a heartbeat.

"Jon, Jon!" He shouts, desperation overwhelming his tone. "God, Jon, please, please be okay, I _need_ you to be okay!"

The silence that falls after his words hurts in a way Martin didn't know possible. He feels around for the desk to hold himself up, to stop himself from falling apart, and crumbling to the floor and into the darkness deeper than any night.

The tears start to well up in Martin's eyes, blinding him and blurring the light further. It takes sitting in the discarded chair to feel it, _sense_ it more than anything else.

A figure, something ethereal, lingering over him. The words, less than a whisper, freeze Martin's blood.

_Hello, Martin._

Martin tries to reach out, but his fingers slip through the shadow, incorporeal. It feels like buzzing bees, but less, the space he had passed through, and the laughter is like oil in his ear.

_Isn't it lovely? Nothing can ever hurt me again. I'm **free.** You understand, don't you? What it means to be as smoke, hidden and unseen._

"Jon…" Martin starts, but the air vibrates again, shifting around to Martin's other side. Something less than a finger rests on the back of Martin's neck, and a part of him cries out for Jon, for the Jon of _before._

_I can see why you embraced it, why it embraced you. Why you decided to stay alone. It's lovely isn't it? Nothing **hurts.** I can feel how much the Fog likes you, wants you. Out of sight of the Eye and out of mind…_

_The darkness is better suited to me I think, though. So thank you for your gift. It's a kindness I can't repay, not anymore. But I will do my best, Martin. I will do my best._

Martin closes his eyes, feeling the tears well up. _Jon, oh Jon. I can't leave you alone, not really,_ he thinks, _and you know it as well as I do._ He breathes out and lets something inside him go. Something less than tangible. Something _cold._

He can't help but smile as the first almost there fingers dig into his flesh. They feel gentle, like a long earned _welcome home._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Honestly, it really make me feel good <3.
> 
> Come talk to me on Tumblr at twodrunkencelestials about this or any of my other fics! Or TMA in general, lol.


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